We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
This is a bit of a gripe piece. I know when I was younger, there were people in the organization I worked who felt I was a cocky and outspoken employee. But I was effective and that allowed mobility, and I developed a good reputation over time. As time has gone on, younger people have moved up and I've noticed a considerable bit of 'ageism' on the part of younger folk, so forgive me if I engage a bit of my own.
Not too long ago, I was teaching a class within my company. I encourage Q&A, as well as comments and interruptions as long as they are on topic. At one point, a young man stopped me to ask, "Wouldn't we be better off if we just got rid of the older executives who don't understand new media, and started fresh from scratch?"
I smiled, and replied very simply, "No."
He took offense and commented that younger people knew more, were more adaptable, etc. I again smiled and said, "I know what you're thinking. I was there once, too. We do tend to think, when we're new to the workforce, that business is messed up and we know a better way. Frankly, we probably do when we're younger. But there are a few things lacking when we think this way. For example, experience and perspective. While I can understand you point of view, and to some degree you're correct, the reality is altogether different and it may take time to understand, let alone accept, this."
He was not happy with my response, and his interruptions eventually disrupted the class and we never finished. I had to speak with his director about his behavior. Eventually, he left the company to go with a smaller start-up firm. I hope he found what he was looking for.
I suppose if I asked for a mere shred of sympathy for our president because of the sticky wicket Syria has become, I'd get laughed right off the stage?
I thought so.
From Theo's, I suppose this just about sums it up:
Welcome to the Middle East, indeed.
(by the way, I hope you don't mind my interrupting, but it just now occurred to me to ask: What countries are in the Middle West? Kansas?)
With Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although still sectarian, at least the battle lines were fairly well drawn. If even half of the above pic is true, we are a long, long ways from those former days of innocence. And I have no reason to think the entire thing isn't right on the money. What a friggin' mess.
As she has a hundred times before, our own Klondike Queen nailed it:
In laying out the case for military strikes on Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday had praise for the French, who he called “our oldest ally,” but snubbed any mention of the British, who have long believed they enjoyed a “special relationship” with the U.S.
When you're forced to praise the weak-ass French as being staunch allies, you know the End Times are near.
Which isn't to say all Brits are particularly happy with their Parliament's decision:
Remember how France refused to support us in the Iraq War and patriots were calling for French fries to be renamed "freedom fries"?
Turnabout's fair play:
Britain, a U.S. ally in the war in Iraq, might watch from the sidelines if Washington launches a Syrian strike and turns to France for a European stamp of approval. (Could we see the debut of “liberty muffins’’ a decade after the derisory “freedom fries”?)
Back to our president, remember how the MSM labeled President Bush a 'warmonger', 'baby-killer', with his 'immoral war' and all the rest?
From CNN's web site this morning:
This time, with a Democrat in the White House, it appears the rules have changed. Poor President Obama is already war-weary — and he hasn't even done anything yet. But he's tough and gritty and 'determined' to see Truth and Justice prevail. Must be nice having the MSM cover your ass.
My personal fantasy:
(ring-ring!)
"Good morning, this is Susan, Sarah Palin's assistant."
"Hi, this is President Obama. Can I speak to Sarah for a sec?"
"Sure, she's right here. Hey, Sarah, President Deadbeat's on the phone!"
"Good morning, Mr. President, this is Sarah. How may I help you?"
"Could you pop by the White House later today? I'd like to have you standing beside me when I repeat your message to the world."
Weekends are a real wasteland around here, especially in the summer, and double-especially the holidays, so I hate to burn up my valuable little horde of links. Instead, I'll list a few link sites. Then you may wallow and bask in glorious linkdom to your heart's content.
On a right-wing site, the first two to mention would probably be Drudge and Instapundit. Both are somewhat eclectic, in that right under the article demanding we immediately nuke Syria is a link to how hot Madonna looks in her new grillz.
Next up might be Real Clear Politics, and what's to note is that when it comes to sections like their 'Tech' and 'History', they're actually a fairly 'deep' site, with a specific search usually pulling up lots of goodies.
Leaving news and history behind, the next step might be one of the 'why' sites, like Life's Little Mysteries.
The next step down the ladder would be a site like Linkiest, which runs the range from the inane to the brilliant.
Although he's shut down for the time being due to family problems, I think the best political cartoonist out there these days is the Hope and Change guy. Going through the archives is a blast.
Another great cartoonistartist textmeister is the guy who does the Text From Dog site. For just quick text messages, some of it's quite clever.
As for my own links pages, I have a collection of my video posts here, one of computer tips here, and a 'best of' here.
Well, that should keep you busy for a few minutes.
A little over a month ago, I posted a piece on Seth Klarman's call for a change in economic policy. The bizarre action in stock and bond markets indicate something is amiss. Is 'tapering' going to tank the market (undoubtedly, if done properly)? Will our increasingly likely involvement with Syria have implications in the economy (of course)?
What all these questions imply is that we're spending too much money, somewhere, on 'stuff', rather than productive capacity. Production is what creates consumption and demand, not vice-versa as Keynesians suggest. The very first consumer had to produce (via hunting/gathering) what he/she consumed before it could be consumed. This is not a chicken-egg question, it's self-evident. Your desire to consume a hard-boiled egg may create the demand needed to have someone, somewhere to boil an egg and sell it to you. This desire, however, cannot be stimulated by providing you with cash or the means to purchase or make the egg. Before you can create that demand, you have to know it can be produced either by yourself or by someone else who you can purchase it from. If the recipe for a hard-boiled egg doesn't exist, but you desire it, your entrepreneurial spirits may be stirred to become a cook and make this for all to enjoy. That process leads to the development of consumer desire for the product.
Today, however, our government believes desires of this sort are generated by moving money, with the benefit of a 'central brain' in Washington, D.C. to guide the money into places where it can be used to increase consumption, which will drive production. This guided shifting of cash will lift all boats. Not all the money will be shifted from the rich to the poor, but some will be shifted from the future into the present, making the present more productive, and the future that much more productive because we'll borrow from tax revenues generated by increased taxes on the future rich.
Aaron Clarey prepared a useful chart showing how well this works, how much GDP we get per government dollar spent.
The problem with Keynesianism is its core belief that you can properly shift money to productive areas through a reasonably well guided government process. There are some who claim borrowing from the future limits future productive capacity, due to payments on interest. This is true to a point. One has to remember entrepreneurs borrow from the future to increase productive capacity. That concept is not flawed in business. The reason it is flawed in government is at least two-fold:
1. Dead-weight loss. A government has to pay for bureaucrats to shuffle the money from the taxpayer to the areas of productive value, and is not incentivized to do it in a timely or useful manner. An entrepreneur will do this more efficiently, realizing any wasted money is lost potential. 2. Perfect knowledge. None of us have perfect knowledge regarding what will yield great productivity. More entrepreneurs fail than succeed, but the risk and responsibility falls upon them and their investors. It's only logical that government will fail more frequently than it succeeds if it tries to use money to increase productivity. This is why Solyndras are more common than not. But the problem is the risk is absorbed by taxpayers, not investors, who may not have wanted to see the money go to a Solyndra, while the responsibilty should be borne by the politicians, but is never assigned to them in full. More importantly, government reassignation of revenues is not a tool of progress, as some politicians claim, it is a tool for resistance to change.
Markets are conducive to evolutionary improvement. Government empowers those who want to resist change.~Arnold Kling
The government's failure shouldn't be a surprise. If he was an entrepreneur, the massive failure of Obama's economic policies should almost be expected.
It is the source of the money he is using to pursue his goals that are at issue. All investors may be taxpayers, but not all taxpayers are investors. It is wrong to force them to invest when the odds of failure are high and they have no say about who gets the money.
Taxing Peter to pay Paul is using Peter for Paul. It is corrupting. Modern governments have been encouraged to think that any abuse of Peter is just fine, that Peter is a slave available for any duty that the ruler has in mind. ~Deirdre McCloskey
Every now and then some zealot suddenly decides those horrid anonymous commenters need to be put in their place. Here's a typical screed, which asks:
So, is it OK that so many bloggers and commenters use pseudonyms? Are their opinions godlike? Or, are they just afraid to reveal themselves completely?
Yep, that's your only choice, folks. Either your opinion is godlike — or you're afraid to reveal yourself completely. No other choice will do.
...and others just want to be rude or snarky or such without responsibility, accountability or consequence.
Consequence? So, you read an article that really makes your blood boil, you let the blogger have it with both barrels, then it turns out a devoted acolyte takes severe umbrage at your comment, looks up your real name and hunts your ragged ass down with his 12-gauge shotgun, literally giving you both barrels for daring to call the great god blogger "a lowly scumdog". Ho-hum, just another consequence in the life of the average blog commenter. Or former commenter, in this case.
The days of anonymous commenting on The Huffington Post are numbered. Founder Arianna Huffington said in a question-and-answer session with reporters in Boston Wednesday that the online news site plans to require users to comment on stories under their real names, beginning next month.
It's quite the noble mission, all in all, meeting the highest of standards and setting an exemplary example for blog sites throughout the world. There's only one tiny little piece missing from this otherwise brilliant plan:
Our mighty leader has taken off for the faraway land of Italia for ten days, leaving you in the clutches warm, caring hands of the staff.
Which is exactly what staffs should have.
While it won't be the circus we had when the big guy went out to the Cape a while back (20 posts in 5 days was a bit much even for prolific ol' me), we'll still have fun.
As far as Bulldog goes, ol' Droolie is pawin' at the ground and slobberin' at the bit in anticipation of the mountains of adulation and heaps of scorn that go along with being a modern-day blogger. And who could resist such a temptation?
And the rest of the gang should be pitching in unless they're also out of town. Barrie in particular has been on fire lately.
Oh, and it wouldn't be an official "while the cat's away" vacation without opening up the Maggie's Farm Smut Guide for the duration.
The case of Army Pvt. Bradley Edward Manning, who insists his name is now Chelsea Elizabeth Manning because he wants to spend his 35 years behind bars as a woman, just won’t go quietly into the Fort Leavenworth prison night.
Meanwhile, Fox News host Gregg Jarrett said on air — and in response to the growing pressure from various entities who are sympathetic to Manning — during a segment a few days ago, “I don’t do what Bradley Manning wants me to do.”
Neither does CNN. Executives announced its reporters and anchors would continue to call Manning a “he” because the soldier, who’s in a Fort Leavenworth military prison for releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks, is not actually taking hormone therapy or undergoing any medical procedure that would change his gender.
+1 for Dylan Thomas reference.
The post is on The Washington Times site, and although they didn't mention themselves in the article, the above illustrates they're not jumping on board either.
Say, speaking of gender-based issues, it appears one of those "black" guys you read about named something like Marty Louie King has been in the news lately. He apparently made some famous speech about "I'll have an ice cream", which I'm sure was appreciated by dairy manufacturers throughout the country. If I'm reading this right, he was actually the founder of the Democratic Party.
People have been writing articles recently on "What Dr. King would think if he were alive today". I think my answer would be, he'd throw up.
As I understand it, there's a large country to the north of us called something like "Canadoi"? "Kanaday"? Something like that. Anyway, they're pretty proud up there because they won the War of 1812. In other words, what you may have learned in school about its outcome is purely a demographic issue, open to interpretation.
Sadly, though, like we have our anti-America rebels down here, they, too, have the same type of degenerates allowed to speak out due to that silly 'freedom of speech' business, like this treasonous subversive: The Real Legacy of 1812? It Never Happened Again
Finally, on a fun, upbeat note, were you aware a million Muslims are going to march on Washington to celebrate 9/11 and complain about how bitterly and angrily they're treated (oh, and don't forget "constantly spat upon") here in America?
Well, as a means of showing their support for this noble cause, my buddies Jimbo and Shorty and the rest of the boys have offered to pitch in.
Say, I have a rather delicate question for you guys:
How many push-ups can you do?
And I don't mean those tough chin-has-to-touch-the-ground military type; more like 'camp style' push-ups, where you go down most ways then back up.
How about 25?
And you're not even breathing hard?
The point, of course, is that it's one thing to sit there in your elite ivory tower, claiming how America should get off its collective butt and start exercising and eating better...
When was hard work a human value, other than in Northern Europe? A human necessity at times for most (other than the warriors and the princesses), but a "value"? InGenesis, wasn't labor a punishment?Those of us who love hard work and 14-hour work days may be the crazy ones.
Also, bear in mind the statistical fact that most people preoccupied with diet and food and health are a bit neurotic. "Health nuts," as they are termed.
DOJ
Declares Atheism A “Religious Movement”, Eligible For Religious Tax
Exemptions - See more at:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/08/insane-doj-declares-atheism-a-religious-movement-eligible-for-religious-tax-exemptions/#sthash.hU5WRAPA.dpuf
DOJ
Declares Atheism A “Religious Movement”, Eligible For Religious Tax
Exemptions - See more at:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/08/insane-doj-declares-atheism-a-religious-movement-eligible-for-religious-tax-exemptions/#sthash.hU5WRAPA.dpuf
The
Washington Post Oversimplifies The Value of College - See more at:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/08/the_washington_post_oversimpli.html#sthash.5tVG3Ced.dpuf
The
Washington Post Oversimplifies The Value of College - See more at:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/08/the_washington_post_oversimpli.html#sthash.5tVG3Ced.dpuf
The
Washington Post Oversimplifies The Value of College - See more at:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/08/the_washington_post_oversimpli.html#sthash.5tVG3Ced.dpuf
A public school is a really expensive, but shabby and ineffectual, private school that collects their tuition with the threat of eviction from your house.
The assumption that historical processes align with a forward motion, that the liberalization of a society moves it forward, are so innate that it goes unquestioned. It is why democracy is held to be a good, entirely apart from its outcome. Even if democratic elections lead to a takeover by a junta of fanatical cannibals, the very act of holding an election moves a society forward through one hoop in the great circus of historical processes. The immediate result may be cannibalism, but in the long run, as Arab Spring advocates remind us from the editorial pages, the society moves forward.
The liberal understanding of history made it impossible to see the Muslim Brotherhood for what it was because its victory did not fit the march of progress. The victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in a democratic election meant that it was progressive. Because that is how the forward motion of history is meant to work. And its overthrow had to be considered reactionary, regardless of the issues...
Here at Maggie's Farm, where we use tractors and fossil fuel and the internet, we nonetheless tend to view the notion of "progress" as a false idol.
,,,if your idea of your marriage contract requires you to stay exciting and
interesting, then it’s like a TV show that depends on its ratings, and
eventually, no matter how many cute kids you add, murder trials you
withstand, or sharks you jump in water skis, ratings will inevitably
decline.
Richard Vedder: The Real Reason College Costs So Much - The expert on the economics of higher education
explains how subsidies fuel rising prices and why there's a 'bubble' in
student loans and college enrollment.
Obama Holding Private Bi-Sexual Conference At White House
- See
more at:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/08/obama-holding-private-bi-sexual-conference-at-white-house/?ModPagespeed=noscript#sthash.mwt3jeMo.dpuf
Some of our friends have a (volunteer, but expert) project to provide cheap and simple medical 911 systems to Third World countries. They plan to begin with Haiti and Latin America.
It's a good cause. Roll them a coin if you can, and tell friends who might be interested. It's not an app, it's a phone feature. God bless those who put their time, brains, and energy into such positive and inventive pursuits.
Few of us in the First World have any idea what it's like out there. And still people in America complain about medical care. They always will. Prosperity and the world's best medical care have turned us into babies.
Finally! One thing we can all agree on is that last-minute Christmas shopping is a real drag. The crowds, the noise, the confusion, the cold sleet or snow because you're in the middle of goddamn winter — in short, it sucks.
So, while we'd all appreciate just a few more days in the shopping season to help us out, the hands of the retailers are tied since there's an unwritten rule that they can't swamp the land with Christmas stuff until the official 'Thanksgiving timeline' is over.
However, with the help of the Department of Interior collaborating with the National American Turkey Council, they came up with a very clever solution:
For someone who grew up in an era when it was strictly verboten for businesses to put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving, it's been somewhat sad to see the commercial greed seep forth a little earlier every year since. I believe these days the decorations are going up just after the 4th of July. I hear Easter's the next goal.
In the writing biz, this is known as when fantasy meets reality.
For starters, I need to find a new 6-V starter battery for the old Ford tractor. Then mowing, hedge-trimming, and tree-cutting.
Half of America is on holiday right now, and nobody else is in the mood for the bad news anyway.
I will throw in one link, about coffee: How to Make Perfect Coffee - The science of what makes coffee great. The article feels so effete that it could be satire, but it isn't.
As BD mentioned a while back, he and the missus are doing their usual summer fling in Italy in a few weeks, so I'll be saving up goodies and not posting much in the interim. I'll have some pretty interesting pieces, though, including an AGW post with a very unique viewpoint, a tutorial on how to make one of those 'slideshow songs' where the pics line up with the lyrics, how to type "I ♥ Maggie's Farm" with a few quick keystrokes, and it only took two hours and 20 years of online expertise but I finally tracked down a copy of the 1974 National Lampoon Stereo Test And Demonstration Record on a backwater P2P site for your listening and stereo testing enjoyment.
On the health front, I just took my blood pressure and it was 135 (high figure), and that's without taking any blood pressure medicine for four days. That's still slightly above average, but compared to its peak of 195 a few months ago, it'll do.
The one main difference has been an almost salt-free diet. I got so curious about the whole salt issue that I purposefully didn't change anything else (exercise, smoking, coffee, etc) just to see what would happen. Despite claims that "salt does not cause these things", I must beg to differ. The blood pressure medicine initially knocked it down to non-life-threatening levels, then I halved the dosage a few weeks ago, then decided to see what would happen if I stopped it altogether four days ago. The results speak for themselves. I'll go back to halving it and get a fresh prescription when I visit the GP in a few weeks.
I also still owe the hospital over a thousand bucks and am desperately low on cash (as I've been since this nightmare started), so if anyone would care to throw a few doubloons into my relief fund, it would certainly be appreciated.
In other news, I heard via email the other day another by-now-typical domain name heartbreak story:
(the names have been changed to protect the innocent, if any)
Doc -
Well, craparoonie! You would think that "James Morgan Downing" would be an obscure enough name that it would be available, but not only was "jamesdowning.com" and "jamesmdowning.com" taken, but so was the whole thing, "jamesmorgandowning.com"! I ended up taking "james-downing.com", but I'm not happy about it. On the other hand, I suppose I should be grateful that at least it was available!
Indeed.
As I've noted before, once a domain is gone, it's pretty much gone forever because the domain harvesters will snatch it up automatically within milliseconds of it coming back on the market. They figure if somebody wanted it once, then somebody else will want it again one day, at which point they'll be happy to lease it to you for the rest of eternity — unless you want to buy it outright for a mere $4,995, of course.
The bottom line is, if you ever might want your own domain, even if just to post pics of the grandkids on in twenty years, now's the time to get it. At $5.95/mo, it's the cheapest bill in the In Box, and you don't have to actually build a site or anything to hold it.
As for grabbing it, I highly recommend BlueHost. It's run by a nice conservative company based in Provo, Utah. The CEO does a twice-yearly email round-up and the guy's hysterical, always throwing zingers and barbs at Washington and our meddling Congress. I have some tips on domain names here.
For your visual delight, a blast from the past; the incredible footage of that airliner landing on that highway out in L.A. a few years ago. The fact that a TV news crew happened to be right there when it happened was a remarkable stroke of luck, not to mention catching on film the horror of the harrowing landing, itself.
Obamacare
Officials Hire Detective Force to Go With Their Armed Tax Agents - See
more at:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/08/feds-hire-obamacare-detective-force-to-go-with-their-armed-tax-agents/#sthash.URtmUZhH.dpuf
If a guy has had some drinks, is it OK for a gal to have sex with him just to satisfy her immediate lust? Horny women take advantage of guys every day, and nobody says a word about it.Seducing guys is the easiest thing in the world and every female knows it. Vice-versa, not so easy.
Perhaps the "bored youth" need more access to government midnight basketball?
And with this sort of cash lying around, if you got really bored you could take a vacation trip to California or Europe. Or maybe spend it on some summer computer programming courses. When I was a bored youth with only the money I had from my paper route, I'd go fishing or read a book or throw together a little baseball in the neighborhood.
However, I never desired any jail cred. I think jail cred, for these youths, is what Eagle Scout was in my neighborhood. It's a multicultural issue to which we are supposed to be sensitive.
It's not enough to accept any government's explanations for censorship or unlawful detention. We have to consider what compels government to do what it does, in general. That is, the pursuit of power.
The promise to "fight terrorism" may provide a fig leaf, but barely that. "Terrorism" is whatever a government chooses it to be, and this definition will be used by those in power to pursue more power.
my view will be informed by these points:
1. Governments lieabout the scope of their surveillance measures against us.
2. Governments say that what they are doing in the war on terrorism needs to be secret, but governments have an established record of lying about their need for secrecy.
3. When governments say that they are using their powers to fight terrorists, government are lying. Government actually use their expanded powers to pursue whatever they want, including copyright infringement and the War of Drugs. Therefore it would not surprise me in the least if a nominally anti-terrorist measure were stretched here to accommodate a leak investigation.
"... a memo sent to China's universities told them to avoid “seven evil subjects" -- listed as "universal values; western ideas of the freedom of the press; civil society; civic rights; historical mistakes of the Communist party; crony networks; and judicial independence.""
America's Libertarian Moment - A longtime libertarian policy wonk talks about whether the
philosophy can save the GOP -- and why he still doesn't think Rand Paul
can win the presidency.
I Say, How Did Hard Work 
Sipp 
Finally! One thing we can all agree on is that last-minute Christmas shopping is a real drag. The crowds, the noise, the confusion, the cold sleet or snow because you're in the middle of goddamn winter — in short, it sucks.
Too many projects to get done on the Farm today.
